Selling Out

I remember those days. The young, budding artist refusing to write or record music that sounded too mainstream or too commercial. I would never sell out to the Man, that mysterious Orwellian ghoul who would strip me of my artistic integrity in exchange for that evil paycheck.

Well, guess what. Times have changed, and if you want to make some part (or all) of your living by writing, recording or performing music, you actually have to SELL something. That is, you have to offer something that will compel people to GIVE YOU THEIR MONEY.

Now, whether you believe it or not, this has never really changed. No label hands a band money if they don’t think they’ll make it back. No retailer is going to carry your CD if nobody wants to buy it. And no artist, no mater where they fall on the file-sharing debate, is eager to give away their hard-earned and often expensively produced music for free unless they think it will help them draw at a show and are you ready to MAKE MORE MONEY.

See a pattern forming?

The good news is this. These days not only can we as artists get international distribution without a label (see iTunes) or do virtually free viral marketing (see YouTube), the avenues by which you can market and sell your musical genius is growing exponentially.

Video games, apps for your iPhone, commercials, movie soundtracks, TV shows, independent films and shorts, not to mention every social networking website on the planet… All of these need content. So if you’re open to these possibilities and you have quality, professional sounding material, you could find your music in front of literally millions of people around the globe who would never have had the chance to hear your music before. And if just one in 1000 of these people decides to buy just ONE of your songs from iTunes, well my friend, you’ve just earned yourself a paycheck.

Then again, we wouldn’t want anyone to think you were selling out, would we?